You know, as great a horn player and stage personality as he was, I've never understood why Satchmo is considered a great singer.
Fred Astaire, whose timing and phrasing were such that the great songwriters loved his versions of songs, isn't considered a great singer.
And, unlike Gene Lees, I agree with that assessment. A great singer has to have a great sound, a great timbre. Astaire didn't.
Frank Sinatra had it. Of his three kids, two wanted to be singers. Frank Jr. essentially failed, but he had a very good vocal sound and he could have succeeded had he been willing to give up on the idea of besting his father at his own game.
His sister Nancy had a pretty good career. Like Astaire her phrasing and timing are superb. With Lee Hazlewood, she did some fine work. But she is a very limited singer, one who just has no range, very little expressive ability outside a limited zone. I saw her onstage with, of all people, Debbie Harry-yes, the Blondie glam-rock-pretending-to-be-punk frontwoman. Harry, not even trying, flat blew her away.
Silly me, thinking singers should sound good. Old Satchmo reminds me of that guy Rush Limbaugh used to play all the time, except that guy was actually a little better.
But as I said, Louis as a horn man-he's still unexcelled in many ways. I always like the sound of his horn and the way it fits in, which is something I can not always say about Wynton Marsalis (great technician, otherwise unexceptional except in his own mind and those of the people who run PBS) or even, dare I say it, teechnically the finest trumpeter ever, Maynard Ferguson. And he was hard not to like, unlike Miles, who was prickish and arrogant.
I think it is really super cool that he can do this!
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